January 3 Friday – In Hartford, Sam telegraphed a response to Whitelaw Reid’s letter of Dec. 28, asking him to “write something, no matter what, over your own signature within the next week,”: “Will write the article today.” The untimely death of Horace Greeley had thrown the Tribune into chaos, and politics over ownership evolved into Reid buying controlling interest (with the help of Jay Gould). Reid announced he would make the newspaper what Greeley would have made it—“a frank and fearless paper.” Reid had also solicited articles from Charles Dudley Warner, Bret Harte, and probably others [MTL 5: 263].

Sam followed up the telegram with a short letter with opinion about the Sandwich Islands and ambitions in the U.S. to annex them as a result of the death of King Kamehameha V. Sam’s letter ran in the Tribune on Jan. 6 [264].